1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to a support device for an ambulatory fluid delivery system. More specifically, the present invention relates to an adaptor for allowing attachment of a fluid container to the support device.
2. Description of the Prior Art
It is common for patient's having certain medical problems to require periodic premeasured infusions of fluid, such as medicaments or nutrients, into their bodies. Examples of such patients are those who may require nutrients to be delivered directly into their digestive tract periodically over long periods of time, or cancer patients who require exacting amounts of medication to be delivered intravenously at precise intervals.
In the past, such patients required hospitalization for the time necessary to infuse the nutrients or medicaments, in order to allow medical personnel to perform the infusions at the proper time and in the proper amounts. Such a procedure was extremely time consuming to the patient and also the hospital personnel, and included the potential of human error in calculation of infusion dosages and injection time intervals.
An improvement on the above procedure has been to employ a programmable pump to insure that the patient receives the proper infusion dosage at the proper time period, thus relieving medical personnel from constant monitoring of the patient, and from worrying about infusion amounts and time tables. Although the programmable pump greatly relieves medical personnel of time consuming care to the patient, the patient nevertheless remained bound to the hospital bed during the prolonged infusion periods.
A further improvement has been to develop an infusion system which can not only automatically infuse preset volumes of fluid into the patient on a predetermined time table, but also allow the patient to be ambulatory. U.S. Pat. No. exemplary of portable infusion systems of this type. It discloses a fluid delivery system mounted on a portable support frame. The pump is automatically operable at selected time intervals to inject accurate amounts of fluid medication into a patient's body, and is also sufficiently compact and portable to allow the patient to be ambulatory during the infusion procedure.
Although the above described ambulatory support device of Sunderland et al. is a significant improvement in portable fluid delivery systems, there nevertheless remains a problem in its adaption to all types of fluid containers. For example, the container of a fluid delivery set may be a flexible bag, a rigid glass or plastic bottle or a burette. Although the support device of Sunderland et al. can accommodate several types of containers, there nevertheless remains room for improvement in attachment thereto of soft sided flexible bags, such as are commonly prefilled with fluid for delivery through the fluid delivery system.